1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of gel-coating seed and an apparatus used therefore, and more particularly to a method of coating a seed efficiently and continuously with a gel layer containing nutrients, sterilizers or the like, and having elastic property, in which only the surface of the gel coating layer is cured for protecting the seed and the seed is sphericalized and enlarged for improving the germination rate and facilitating seeding. The invention also relates to an apparatus used for practicing such a method.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, it is general that seeds without coating are sown in a field. However, in order to protect seeds from being eaten by animals or to provide preliminary processing before sowing for improvement of the germination rate and sterilization, there have been used coated seeds. In the conventional seed-coating, the periphery of a seed is coated with coating material such as clay, fine sand, or those containing sugar while CMC (carboxymethyl cellulose) being sprayed on the surface of the seed as a binder. In the above example, comparatively hard coating material is used. On the other hand, there has been used soft coating method with gel or gelatin-like material that swells when the seed contains water.
In the conventional coating technique, however, there has not yet been known coating the seed by using an aqueous gel that cures only the surface of the gel coating layer.